


He's My Sun (He Makes Me Shine)

by tomfoolery14



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coda to 3x10, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomfoolery14/pseuds/tomfoolery14
Summary: Sequel to "Nothing But My Aching Soul"Alec's adjustment period to the aftermath.





	He's My Sun (He Makes Me Shine)

With a tired sigh, Alec set down his tablet on the desk and leaned back in his chair. He was exhausted, and his eyes were tired and sore from staring at fine print. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he couldn’t help the groan that slipped out.

A brief tap on the door startled his hands away from his face, and he straightened up slightly. “Yeah?”

When it swung open, Isabelle was standing on the other side, holding a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. “Relax, big brother. Want a drink?”

With a weary smile, Alec waved her in, standing up to properly greet her. His arms encircled her, and the smell of her perfume helped to melt some of his tension. She’d been wearing the same one for years, and it had become something synonymous with home for him.

She laughed kindly, pressing her cheek to his chest and patting at his forearms affectionately. “I figured you might need some moral support.”

Snorting softly, Alec pulled back to gesture to the couch. “I was only gone for a few days but things pile up horrendously fast around here when the warlocks splinter under a pretentious high warlock, a building gets leveled by an unassuming vampire bearing the Mark of Cain banishing the mother of all demons back to hell, and half the members of The Gard get massacred by an undead iteration of Valentine Morgenstern.”

“How are you feeling?” Isabelle asked, sinking onto one of the dense couch cushions and kicking off her platform stilettos with a _thunk_.

“I’m fine. I wouldn’t have come back to work if I wasn’t.” Alec’s hand reflexively hovered above his chest, where he sometimes still felt the phantom ache of his arrow embedded inside. It still throbbed sometimes, and when he was home with Magnus, the soft, gentle caress of Magnus’ fingers soothed away the pain. “I don’t want to be a burden to Magnus.”

The soft _clink_ of the bottle of Johnnie Walker tapping against the edge of the glass preceded Isabelle’s reply. “You’re never a burden to him. Clearly, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you.”

Breath catching in his chest, Alec looked away. “I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that.”

“Hey.” When he didn’t face her, she got up and took his hand, pulling him to the couch. “ _Hey_. Magnus would never, ever hold that over you. Ever. He did what he did for more than just you, you know.” A wry smile twitched on her lips. “All those people Lilith possessed through the Owl, all the people it caused them to kill…they needed justice too. And Magnus has too much compassion in his heart to let anyone suffer when he can do something about it. You would never have been able to stop him from making his choice.”

Taking the one of the full glasses from her hand, Alec downed half of it, hissing in distaste at the sharp burn. “What he gave up… That’s all he’s ever known. It makes me sick to my stomach when I think about what he’s lost. How I’ve hurt him.”

“Alec,” Isabelle reproved patiently. “You’re in love with him; you want to carry his burdens and keep the world from touching him. We all feel that way about the ones we love. But you can’t blame yourself for his decision. Don’t take away the one thing he has left that makes him feel complete.”

Alec smiled shyly and pointed at himself wordlessly, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

With a laugh as soft as a spring breeze, Isabelle tapped her glass against his before downing all of it without so much as a grimace. “What is Magnus doing, now that he’s not seeing clients?”

“Acclimating,” Alec replied carefully.

“Mm.” Isabelle hummed in understanding, refilling both of their glasses.

One drink turned into two which turned into three which turned into an ambiguous haze of warmth and happiness and simplicity. Alec hadn’t realized just how much he needed this, needed Isabelle’s company. She had always been the one person who understood him even when he didn’t understand himself, and even when they sat in silence it was nothing but easy and safe.

At some point, they had slipped from the couch onto the floor, Isabelle lying on her stomach with her ankles crossed delicately and Alec sitting up against the coffee table with his knees pulled up to his chest. She was dozing off, eyelashes fluttering weakly and the hand that held her glass drooping slightly every few seconds.

With a warm smile, Alec carefully got to his feet and pulled Isabelle with him. All of her weight fell against his side, and she hummed sleepily. “What’s going on?”

“I’m taking you to your room. You need sleep,” Alec murmured, shouldering the door of his office open. Fortunately, her living quarters weren’t far.

When they were children, Isabelle would sneak into Alec’s room in the late hours of the night and gently shake him awake to ask if they could go to the roof and look at the stars. Her favorite time to go was when there was a harvest moon—a beautiful orange glow against the velvet black sky. She usually couldn’t stay awake longer than ten or fifteen minutes, and he would have to carry her back to bed. But he didn’t mind.

He carefully set her on her bed and pulled the covers up around her. “See you in the morning, Iz.”

“Mm. Love you.” There was a faint smile on her lips and she rolled over onto her side, back to him.

“Love you too.”

When he got back to his office, he was surprised to find someone sitting in his chair. “Magnus! What are you doing here?”

“I can’t come visit you now?” The ever-present self-assuredness and confidence that always bled into Magnus’ motions and demeanor was noticeably absent, though he was clearly making a very valiant attempt at replicating it with the way he sat comfortably in Alec’s chair, rolling one of Alec’s pens back and forth between his index finger and thumb. “I see I just missed Isabelle,” he added, inclining his head towards the ostentatious heels haphazardly left by the couch.

“We had drinks,” Alec explained, coming over to Magnus to kiss him in greeting.

“Ooh.” Magnus pulled back with a smirk. “I would say so. What is that?” He kissed Alec once, twice, three times open mouthed and punctuated with a flick of his tongue, tasting the whiskey on his lips. “Mm. Johnnie—good choice.”

“It was Izzy. She came by and had a bottle so we just…” Alec trailed off with a lazy gesture of his hand. “I was just going to get my stuff and come home. What are you doing here?”

Magnus shrugged, and Alec could see the second the walls he’d been rebuilding around himself began to creep up again. “I think the loft might need to be redecorated; the more time I spend in it, the more I think it doesn’t really suit me any longer.”

“I’m sorry,” was what came out of Alec’s mouth. He hadn’t intended to say it; Magnus Bane wasn’t one to be pitied, and God knows Alec never would.

“My angel. My light. My love. _Please_ no more apologies,” Magnus insisted, reaching up to caress his cheek.

Alec was helpless to keep himself from pressing into it, kissing the proffered palm. The usual metallic bite of magic that he usually tasted on Magnus’ skin was gone, and his stomach churned at the realization.

“I know that you have a great deal of sympathy and compassion in that beautiful heart of yours,” Magnus continued, “but I’m all right. I can be wounded and distraught, and mourn the price I paid, but it wouldn’t give me back what I’ve lost.”

“What can I do?” Alec all but begged, putting his own hand over Magnus’ that still held his face so tenderly. “Would Asmodeus deal if I went to him? I’ll give my runes, like my mother did, if he asked for it. I—”

“No,” Magnus interrupted. “You will do no such thing. You don’t have to equalize, Alexander. Matching my suffering won’t do either of us any good. And my father has no business interfering in the affairs of anything or anyone outside of Edom.”

“I feel useless,” Alec admitted softly, lowering his gaze. “And I know I have no right, but I still just feel like I’ll go crazy if I can’t do something to ease your pain.”

“You do, baby.” Sliding his hand out from under Alec’s, Magnus captured his chin between his fingers. “Alexander, there will always be hardships and trials. Just as the sun rises in the east, we know that sometimes we will lose. But anything that I do, I know I can get through because of you. Being born into a bloodline of power doesn’t make you special—what you do with the life you’re given is how we find meaning.”

With a nod, Alec swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat. “I know.”

Magnus took him into his arms, one hand sliding through Alec’s hair comfortingly. “It’s over now,” he whispered. “You can breathe.”

Maybe that’s what it was. Perhaps he was afraid to exhale. Last time he let himself believe there was time for peace, it lasted for only a perfect sliver of time before it all fell apart around them, nearly tearing Magnus away from him again. He couldn’t bear to go through that another time. He would surely die. “I don’t want to lose you.” Alec’s confession was whispered into Magnus’ neck.

“And I you,” Magnus replied. “We have to trust each other, haven’t we? We love one another, and we’ve proven time and time again that we always seem to find our way back to each other. Believe in that.”

“Okay.” Surrender was never something Alec could do readily. It had never been in his nature. Not until he’d realized that it was inevitable that he would love Magnus for eternity, and giving in to that truth had been the best decision he’d ever made.

“Now, how about we go home?” Magnus asked, pulling back to look at Alec with a reassuring grin. “Uber is dreadfully slow but I’ve got to learn to like it, haven’t I?”

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @champagnemagnus


End file.
